All posts tagged ‘dystopia’

The New York Times described Pressia, the main character of Julianna Baggott’s dystopian thriller, Pure, as “fearless, spirited, unflinching,” “a heroine for the video-game age.” Upon finishing the novel, School Library Journal reviewer Liz Burns tweeted that it was “so wonderful I feel sorry for whatever book I read next.” My sixteen-year-old daughter, who had the honor of being an early reader of the book (who, me jealous?), described it as “stunning, thought-provoking, gripping, fascinating, sad but ultimately hopeful, beautiful.”

Those are just a few of the glowing reviews garnered by Pure, a harrowing tale of life after the Detonations, both inside the Dome, where the unscathed Pures live under rigid order, and in the scarred, choked landscape outside, where Pressia–motherless, with a doll’s head actually fused to her hand–struggles for survival alongside her fellow Wretches.

As a longtime fan–and longtime friend–of Julianna Baggott, I was curious to know more about the story behind the story. Julianna obliged me with a bit of Q & A.

Julianna Baggott: Ryan Gosling. If you have to ask why, you don’t really understand the depth of possibilities and responsibilities this question proposes.

MW: Oh believe me, I understand. [Pauses to imagine post-apocalyptic Gosling fused centaur-like to the back of a horse, .] OK, next question. For world-building, do you write back-stories, draw maps, make collages? Do your walls/desk/wherever fill up with reference and/or inspirational images?

JB: I prefer a cluttered workspace. I nest. I tape things to walls. I have a cork board and I pin things to it. Maps, yes. I draw maps. I keep research books stacked up around me. I have my pads of large art paper with my plotlines mapped on them. I have bins for each project on my radar–from first notion to final edits in marked metal bins and I add slips of scrawled-on papers into them. I tally word counts sometimes. I tape sheets to the bookcases. Basically if you burst into my office the walls themselves will flutter as if alive–maybe that’s the reason for all the wings in Pure.

MW: So, the movie rights sold to Fox2000 before the novel was bought by a publishing house. Walk us through that process.

JB: I know I’m not going to get much sympathy here –I don’t feel sorry for myself (at all)–but the honest truth is that the process was agonizing. We had an offer from another studio. Things weren’t going well though. How can things not go well if you have an offer from a studio to buy film rights for a trilogy that hasn’t even yet sold to publishers? Well, it had never, ever dawned on me that things couldn’t go well at that point. But, turns out, they can. And the process was this. People had late night phone conversations on my behalf–LA time which means I was up until midnight to await the news. And the news seemed to entail I make a major decision before noon the next day. So I’d stay up with Dave, my husband and, really, my business partner too, and we’d try to hash it out. I’d barely sleep. At one point, I got all Southern about it and took to the bed, as my ancestors would have suggested. And then it would start again the next day. But then… Fox2000 swooped in and made an offer that worked. And peace and joy rang throughout, well, our living room and the kitchen. And I’m not ashamed to admit it: I cried–in front of the kids and my husband and the dogs. But not in front of the cat. He’d never respect me again. He barely respects me now.

MW: Tell us the story behind the story. What was the writing of Pure like for you? Did you know where it was going from the beginning? What changed along the way?

JB: I always think I know the way a novel will go. I write maps on oversized art pads like the kind I carried around in college when I was earnest about drawing. I need to have some idea of the shape of the novel, where its headed, so that I can proceed with confidence. But the truth is my characters start doing and saying things I don’t expect. The come up with memories, afflictions, attitudes, needs, desires, abiding longings and fears and so I have to make a new map to address these changes. Eventually, I make many maps and then abandon all maps and follow my characters–in a servile manner. Then I make new maps once more. But here’s the thing–and this is where a stubborn stupidity in a writer comes in handy–let’s call it blind confidence– I always believe that every map I write will see me through–down to the last word. It never does.

MW: You’ve written across so many genres and for a wide variety of audiences. Tell us what drew you to dystopian fiction or, if not what drew you in, what kept you rapt.

JB: I’m going to come at this question as a woman writer. I realize it’s dangerous to do so because I’m going to tread on some sexist stereotypes. But here goes. I was liberated by the idea of entering into the largely male-dominated themes of war and violence and horror. I’m not alone, of course. There are many women who’ve treaded in especially recently–both writers and readers. And the territory is becoming our own. Honestly, this question makes me want to talk about Salman Rushdie denigrating Jane Austen in a talk I heard a few years ago and about the brutality of domesticity as portrayed by the likes of Virginia Woolf and others. There’s a lot to say about all of this–women storming these particular gates of genre (post-apocalyptic, dystopian, horror, thriller…). But I haven’t yet sorted it all out, and, honestly, I don’t think I’m the best person to get at it. All I know is that it’s the first time I’ve really tackled such themes, ones that because they were more aligned with the writing of men, perhaps, became great American themes of literature. When I set out to write Pure, I didn’t realize how ambitious the project was, and yet once let loose, I fell deeply into the ash-choked world of my own making, and I hope readers follow me in that fall.

The end of humanity? Psh! The extinction of a single species is hardly the end of the world. Remember the dodos, the Great Auk, and the dinosaurs?

Of all the different avenues along which people enjoy speculating about the apocalypse, most are at least tangentially political in nature. The nuclear holocaust is so overdone that it’s been rendered cliché. Pandemics are also in jeopardy of losing their social impact through overuse in media and other fiction. We’ll probably say the same about anthropogenic climate change in a few decades, even as we adapt to its environmental and economic ravages.

None of those political plot devices is likely to annihilate our species in 2012, but any of them is far more likely bring about our ignominious end than the equally tired religious mechanisms for the demise of human civilization. The second coming and the rapture? Ragnarok? The end of the Maya long count?

Actually, that last is the most absurd. You know what happens when we reach the end of the Maya long count? The same thing that happens when we reach the end of every other calendar invented since humans started measuring time in large units: We throw a big party, and we get a new calendar. Woo-hoo!

There are still a few arguably non-political tropes abused in doomsday prophesies. Polar shift, for example, which would certainly cause mass-extinctions if it was possible. However, in order to experience a polar shift in 2012, Earth would have to be on a collision course with an object so large that we’d be able to observe it with the naked eye by now. Our planet hasn’t had an experience like that since it acquired the moon a few billion years ago. Anyway, the term ‘polar shift’ is actually a red herring for a far more common event properly known as geomagnetic reversal. And that’s about as menacing as a slow-motion Y2K.

What about supervolcanoes? There’ve been an awful lot of earthquakes and eruptions lately, right? Eh, no. Earth is actually pretty quiet right now, on the scale of geologic time. Specifically, there is no indication that a supervolcano will erupt in our lifetimes, never mind in 2012. Specifically, there’s nothing about the Yellowstone caldera – the current favorite of geologic apocalypse-mongers – that suggests it’s going to do anything out of the ordinary any time soon. Even if it did, a supervolcanic eruption probably would not bring about human extinction, and it certainly couldn’t end the world.

Last and least, whenever anyone hears the term ‘Planet X,’ they should dissolve into peals of laughter on the spot. Really. In its proper context, Planet X is something out of a Daffy Duck cartoon, and that’s always worth a chuckle. Outside of its proper context, Planet X doesn’t exist. Anyone otherwise convinced is a fool easily parted from their money.

None of the catastrophes mentioned above are going to occur in 2012, but you can safely bet they and other variations on the apocalyptic theme will happen repeatedly in literature. Alas, not even that will end in 2012. The good news is that when it comes to making the most of flimsy premises and tired dread, fiction bests reality much of the time. After all, dystopia is practically its own genre, nowadays.

For those of you who wouldn’t know, the Guardian Reading Group began with Ray Bradbury’s dystopian classic, Fahrenheit 451, by readers’ choice.

That’s a great, revolutionary choice (so they said), that will especially appeal to us geek people in love with classical sci-fi, and to us parents looking for books to discuss with our children. Utopian and dystopian fiction is a fascinating subject, or so I think. I often study it with my sixteen and seventeen years old students.

If you never read it, “the novel presents a future American society where reading is outlawed and firemen start fires to burn books.” (Wikipedia)

You may, of course, read or reread the book, and discuss it part by part on the Guardian website, or follow the Guardian’s Reading group on Twitter. You may also read some companion posts on Guardian Books. They promised one on the novel’s historical context, Cold War and McCarthyism. They also provide a list of “further readings” to offer some background to Bradbury’s life and books.

Among these suggestions were two really delightful pieces for any geek.

One is a letter by Ray Bradbury himself, written in 1974 and transcripted on the lovely Letters of note website. Asked about “the danger of robots taking over our human world”, Bradbury writes a truly wonderful answer:

Can’t resist commenting on your fears of the Disney robots. Why aren’t you afraid of books, then? The fact is, of course, that people have been afraid of books, down through history. They are extensions of people, not people themselves. Any machine, any robot, is the sum total of the ways we use it. Why not knock down all robot camera devices and the means for reproducing the stuff that goes into such devices, things called projectors in theatres? A motion picture projector is a non-humanoid robot which repeats truths which we inject into it. Is it inhuman? Yes. Does it project human truths to humanize us more often than not? Yes.

The excuse could be made that we should burn all books because some books are dreadful.

We should mash all cars because some cars get in accidents because of the people driving them.

We should burn down all the theatres in the world because some films are trash, drivel.

So it is finally with the robots you say you fear. Why fear something? Why not create with it? Why not build robot teachers to help out in schools where teaching certain subjects is a bore for EVERYONE? Why not have Plato sitting in your Greek Class answering jolly questions about his Republic? I would love to experiment with that. I am not afraid of robots. I am afraid of people, people, people. I want them to remain human. I can help keep them human with the wise and lovely use of books, films, robots, and my own mind, hands, and heart.

I am afraid of Catholics killing Protestants and vice versa.

I am afraid of whites killing blacks and vice versa.

I am afraid of English killing Irish and vice versa.

I am afraid of young killing old and vice versa.

I am afraid of Communists killing Capitalists and vice versa.

But…robots? God, I love them. I will use them humanely to teach all of the above. My voice will speak out of them, and it will be a damned nice voice.

The second is a video tribute, written for the author’s 90th birthday by comedian Rachel Bloom. Be careful, it’s definitely not suitable for children under 18, as YouTube confirms! But the video is hilarious, and comforting in a strange way, thinking that old sci-fi writers can be strongly desirable in our time and place.

“Does the idea of book burning still resonate?” wonder The Guardian and its readers. It certainly does, as Banned Books Week will confirm in a few days.